lls us that four times a year the Biswangers invite him and his wife to dinner and every time are turned down. Neddy tells us that he is very frustrated with their unwillingness to comprehend the rigid and undemocratic realities of their society. (150) We begin to realize that there is something seriously wrong with Neddy when we here about the incident that took place one Sunday morning. Neddy hears Grace Biswanger telling guests about him showing up at their house drunk one morning and asking to borrow five thousand dollars. Apparently Neddy and his family went broke overnight and now had nothing but income. (150) This deviation from Neddys usually respectable and appropriate behavior shows that something must be seriously wrong to have overridden his strong superego. The last aspect of the psyche that Freud introduced us to is the ego that connects us to the outer world by our consciousness. The ego connects us to reality and its goal is to keep a balance between the conflicting goals of the id and superego. It keeps the ids desires under control until it finds a way, in accordance with the superego, to fulfill them. When the demands of the superego and id are conflicting or too demanding then this creates what we know as anxiety. In an effort to reduce overwhelming anxiety, the ego may unconsciously block, repress, or distort disturbing thoughts by means of defense mechanisms. The major explanations for Neddys strange behavior and state of mind are a result of his use of defense mechanisms. The reason he undertakes the journey across the country to a home that is no longer his may be attributed to the defense mechanism known as undoing. Undoing involves magical gestures, rituals or some type of act performed with the goal of canceling an unpleasant prior experience. Maybe Neddy thinks that somehow by taking this new and difficult route home he will find something different at the end. When Neddy tells us of the Biswan...
